The following post appears courtesy of Mary Lou Leary, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs

Last week the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) welcomed Google into the AMBER alert network.  This innovative and exciting new partnership will provide real-time AMBER Alert updates to users of Google Map and Google Search features.  Because we know a child’s chances for a safe recovery are greater when resources are mobilized quickly, Google Public Alerts will help to ensure a rapid response in the first critical hours after a child goes missing.

As most people know, AMBER alert is a notification system for abducted children.  It began in 1996 in response to the abduction and murder of a nine-year-old girl in Texas named Amber Hagerman.  So AMBER is eponymous, but it’s also an acronym – it stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. To date, 591 abducted children have been recovered and brought safely home through AMBER Alerts.

AMBER Alert started as a partnership among law enforcement, broadcasters, and transportation agencies and later expanded to include other groups in what we call a “secondary distribution network,” which allows us to target AMBER Alerts to specific areas and to reach citizens directly.   Radio and TV, lottery and highway signs, airports and truck stops, Yahoo, Facebook and AOL, are all part of the AMBER Alert system of getting information about a missing child to people in the very locality in which she was abducted or last seen.  Federal partners such as the FBI, US Marshals Service, ICE and others are part of the team too.  Now Google, through its Crisis Response/Disaster Relief projects becomes another critical ingredient in our mission to keep our children safe.

What’s so exciting – and innovative – about secondary distribution is that it relies on partnerships between public and private entities.  The collaboration with Google builds on that work, and is particularly encouraging in the case of abducted children because we know the safety of our children is an issue we all care about.  Our partnership with Google is a premier example of the great ventures that result when public and private groups pool their resources and ideas.

I have the privilege of serving as the National AMBER Alert Coordinator, and OJP, through our Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, is the lead federal office responsible for supporting AMBER activities with our public safety partners.  I am tremendously excited about this effort – and about the opportunities this creates for citizens to assist law enforcement in their recovery efforts.   We are deeply grateful to Google for their commitment, to NCMEC for their partnership and for all our work together securing the safety of America’s children.

On October 10th, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole traveled to Talladega, Ala., where he spoke with members of the Northern Alabama Reentry Council. The Reentry Council was formed in April 2011, with the goal of offering recommendations to create more successful outcomes in the lives of former inmates, as well as improving the security of the communities they return to upon their release. The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Joyce White Vance, Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels and FCI Talladega Warden John Rathman hosted the Reentry Council meeting which included a group of professionals from across the federal, state and local criminal justice systems. 

Each year more than 700,000 individuals exit our state and federal prisons. Currently, two-thirds of all released state prisoners will be rearrested within three years, with half of those returning to prison. Forty percent of former federal prisoners are rearrested or have their supervision revoked within three years after release. The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that more than $74 billion is spent on state, local and federal prisons each year.  The Department of Justice has made a strong commitment to programs that will assist with reentry, along with prevention and enforcement, as part of our comprehensive Anti-Violence Strategy.

As Deputy Attorney General Cole said:

“The members of this Council have recognized that we can no longer afford the societal and budgetary costs incurred when people cycle in and out of our prisons… As we developed our comprehensive Anti-Violence Strategy we realized that we cannot arrest and prosecute our way out of this devastating problem.  While prosecution is important, we also have to prevent the violence from happening in the first place and one important way to do this is to pay attention to the people incarcerated in our prisons and as they prepare to leave those institutions make sure they are ready to reenter our communities as productive, law abiding members.  In this vein, federal prosecutors are encouraged to think comprehensively about the criminal justice process – to critically examine other ways to improve public safety, beyond traditional enforcement and to place an increased reliance on criminal justice stakeholders and community leaders to help guide and inform these efforts.” 

Deputy Attorney General Cole went on to discuss other efforts that are being made at the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Prisons and at the state level. He highlighted, for example, programs taking place in Alabama through the Reentry Council:

“[T]hrough its working groups, this Council has tackled issues for formerly incarcerated individuals involving housing, transportation, healthcare and rehabilitation, education, job training and access, and community support and reintegration.  The working groups have developed and implemented critical initiatives which are providing measurable results — such as working on the development of a memorandum of understanding between municipal judges to assist formerly incarcerated individuals who are attempting to re-acquire their driver’s licenses.”

Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the department has prioritized effective reentry and reinvestment programs for formerly incarcerated individuals. Since October 2009, the department has awarded more than $200 million Second Chance Act grants to more than 370 state, local and tribal prisoner reentry programs. These grants will help the nearly 10 million individuals that are released from jails and state and federal prisons each year successfully return to communities.  Recently, the Office of Justice Programs announced new awards including a grant to the Alabama Department of Corrections for the Jefferson County Reentry Planning Project.

U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance noted the impact of the Reentry Council working with the states to take an active role to find solutions to ensure public safety and security.

“The North Alabama Reentry Council has been a collaborative effort among federal and state judges, prosecutors, probation and prisons officials to achieve better outcomes for formerly incarcerated individuals reentering our communities. Our goal in these efforts is to identify and coordinate resources toward enhancing public safety and saving taxpayer dollars. I have been deeply impressed by all the groups in the community who were operating in isolation but came forward and are now working in specific areas that were the worst barriers to successful re-entry.”

In 2011, Attorney General Holder created the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, bringing together 20 federal agencies to tackle the issue of reentry in a comprehensive way. The Department of Justice recognizes that in order to make our country safer, it is important to make sure that rehabilitation and reentry outcomes are a priority. As Deputy Attorney General Cole said:

“Only by working together can we reduce criminal justice spending, protect individuals and their families, prevent new victimizations, and improve the quality of our communities.”

For more information about the Reentry Council and Second Chance Act, visit www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org

The following post appears courtesy of Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, Mary Lou Leary

Last week, I was privileged to speak at the Clery Center for Security on Campus’s 25^th anniversary gathering.  Founded by Connie Clery – who was moved to action by the brutal rape and murder of her daughter, Jeanne – the Clery Center has made a tremendous impact on campus culture by raising awareness of sexual assaults on campus to help make schools safer and provide support and resources for victims.

There was a time when we didn’t talk about campus violence.  We took for granted that our institutions of higher education were peaceful havens for learning.  Meanwhile, victims were often left without support or services. That changed significantly with the passage of the Clery Act in 1990. 

That landmark piece of legislation helped university officials understand the importance of disclosing crimes and security risks.  Thanks to the Clery Act – and to the education and awareness the Clery Center has provided over the years – colleges and universities now are much more focused on solving a problem than on admitting one exists.

But we’re far from meeting all our challenges – especially the problem of sexual assault.  Several studies sponsored by our National Institute of Justice indicate that between 14 and 30 percent of college students experience some type of sexual violence during their college careers. 

In one study, close to 12 percent of students reported being a victim of rape.  And current research suggests that as many as 85 to 90 percent of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim.  Often, alcohol is involved.  Victims in these cases often feel they bear some responsibility for the rape, and fail to report it, fearing they’ll be poorly treated by the police or other parts of the system.  As long as this fear of reporting prevails, we have more to do.

Several years ago, our National Institute of Justice issued a report recommending schools have written response protocols to campus crime, provide prevention education to the general student population, and make sure adequate services are available for the victims.

More recently, our Bureau of Justice Assistance supported a review of campus crime prevention efforts with a national survey of universities on evidence-based crime prevention practices, and held focus groups to discuss where to target campus crime prevention efforts. 

The Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women has awarded $132 million to 360 institutions of higher education since 1999 to help schools develop standards and create programs to address violence against women on campus.  Information gathered from these and other efforts has helped produce useful tools, like a mobile app that provides students and parents access to campus crime statistics and resources on campus safety.  This is a terrific tool, given students’ historic lack of access to information about campus crime. 

Through OJP’s work and partnerships with organizations like the Clery Center, we have raised the profile of campus crime victims and made student safety a top priority of our system of higher education.  

Let’s continue to build on that momentum, working to put systems in place that protect students, help victims, and ensure that our colleges and universities are safe communities for learning and growth.

The following post appears courtesy of Mary Lou Leary, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs

In March of this year President Obama directed his Cabinet to redouble efforts to eliminate human trafficking—or modern-day slavery—which afflicts more than 20 million people around the world, including in communities here at home.  Yesterday, building on the strong record of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and its member agencies, the President announced several initiatives to improve services and legal assistance for victims of human trafficking.

At the Justice Department we coordinate with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to investigate and prosecute human traffickers. We also provide comprehensive assistance to victims. As President Obama announces his important new directives, I am pleased to reflect on the fact that the Office of Justice Program’s (OJP) Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) has funded victim service organizations to support the needs of trafficking victims since 2003.  Those needs may include shelter, sustenance, medical and dental care, mental health treatment, interpretation services, legal and immigration services, literacy education, and more.

Today OVC is announcing two new initiatives and awarding additional trafficking grants that focus on the goal of extending critically needed legal assistance to ensure access to justice for victims of this heinous crime.

The Legal Assistance Capacity Building Initiative will strengthen crime victims’ access to legal help. OVC will work with organizations throughout the country to identify, train, mentor and provide oversight of attorneys who volunteer to provide pro bono legal assistance, including immigration assistance, to crime victims.

With the Wrap-Around Victim Legal Assistance Network Demonstration Projects, OVC has awarded competitive grant funding to six jurisdictions of various sizes to develop collaborative models that can be replicated in communities around the country. Each site will address the wide-range of legal needs that arise for all victims in connection with their victimization, including immigration assistance for human trafficking victims. The sites cover the states of Alaska and Minnesota; city and county of Los Angeles and Long Beach; 72 counties in Texas; Cook County, Illinois; and the city and county of Denver.     

OVC has awarded seven new grants to organizations to provide either “Comprehensive Services” or “Specialized Services” in its Services for Trafficking Victims Grant Program. Under the Comprehensive Service Model, the grantees will give trafficking victims access to a range of services, including shelter, victim advocacy, case management, and medical and mental health care. These Comprehensive Service model grantees in Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and New Jersey must also lead trafficking victims who are immigrants to legal help applying for T visas and U visas and adjustments to their status. The “Specialized” model grantees provide either legal or mental health services for all victims of both sex and labor trafficking in Colorado and New York.

I am proud of the department’s efforts to support the victims of this terrible crime, which dehumanizes and traumatizes its victims and is often hidden in plain sight in communities across this nation.

The following post appears courtesy of Mary Lou Leary, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs

This week is Suicide Prevention Week and the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and the U.S. Surgeon General has delivered a major new report to the American people: the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP). The revised strategy emphasizes the role all Americans can play in protecting their friends, family members, and colleagues from suicide. As the Department of Justice observes National Suicide Prevention Week, we’d like to share with you the some of the ways DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs’ bureaus are integrating suicide prevention into their current initiatives.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), with its many programs in support of officer safety, offers “In Harm’s Way: Law Enforcement Suicide Prevention Program. The downloadable toolkit has vital information on topics covering the roles of employee assistance professionals, peer support, chaplaincy, psychological services, post intervention activities, family support and the needs of survivors of suicide. 

Because some research has found that more women who are domestic violence victims die from suicide than die as a result of homicide, The National Institute of Justice includes a specific focus on suicide in its research grant solicitations. It encourages grantees to examine the outcomes for victims of crimes that involve ongoing and repeated assault, such as domestic violence, teen dating violence and bullying. 

Many programs of The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) have mental health components which integrate suicide prevention, such as the Safe Start and Defending Childhood Initiatives, which focus on protecting and healing youth exposed to violence and trauma. OJJDP also highlights suicide prevention in the Healthy Transitions Initiative, which offers housing, employment and counseling for youth who are coming out of the welfare and juvenile justice systems and adjusting to independent living. OJJDP has also held a webinar series on suicide prevention for Native Youth.

Finally, I want to tell you about a program supported by our Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) which offers dramatic evidence of suicide prevention at work. Flandreau Indian School (FIS) is an off-reservation boarding high school in South Dakota with nearly 300 American Indian and Alaskan Native students.

OVC funding supports mental health counselors at FIS to help the students develop culturally appropriate, healthy strategies to cope with lifetime and historical exposure to violence, trauma and victimization. At one weekly meeting focused on suicide, the counselors taught the teens about the signs and symptoms of suicidal behavior, gave them strategies to intervene with their peers and urged them to ask adults for help. Within days of the presentation, several students told the dorm counselors they were concerned about a fellow student. The adults found the student to be actively suicidal and were able to get him immediate and intensive help, as well as long-term mental health treatment.  

The work of OJP and our public and private partners in the last 10 years has been based on research evidence that we can prevent suicide. Now we must rededicate ourselves to reducing the stigma and silence that still surround it and to raising awareness among the scientific community and the general population that suicide is preventable.

If you or someone you know needs help please call these hotlines: 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433); 1-888-SUICIDE (1-888-784-2433); or 1-877-SUICIDA (1-877-784-2432) (Spanish).

The following post appears courtesy of Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, Mary Lou Leary

Task Force co-chairs Robert Listenbee, Jr. and Joe Torre, and Melodee Hanes, Acting Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Over the last year, the Attorney General’s Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence has traveled the country, listening to practitioners, policymakers, academics, concerned citizens, and victims.  Its goal was to find out how violence and abuse are affecting our kids and our communities and to explore what actions we can take to prevent children’s exposure to violence and mitigate its effects.  The problem is an urgent one, one Attorney General Eric Holder says “we can’t afford to ignore.”

On Wednesday, July 25 the Task Force Co-Chairs went to Congress to report on its progress – to a standing-room only crowd of more than 100 people eager to learn how to stop the national epidemic of children’s exposure to violence.

Task force co-chairs Joe Torre, Yankee legend and executive vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball, and Robert Listenbee, Jr., chief of the Juvenile Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, led the briefing, describing their comprehensive work since the task force launch in October 2011.  They discussed many lessons learned through four public hearings in Baltimore, Albuquerque, Miami and Detroit and three listening sessions in Anchorage, Oakland and Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, WA. 

The variety of sites gave the task force members the big picture of violence in America.  “People think violence is an urban problem, but tribal area statistics are sometimes worse…while rural areas have difficulty getting resources,” noted Co-chair Listenbee. The task force heard personal testimony from 65 people from 27 states and the District of Columbia. These included survivors of violence, young people, social service providers, medical personnel, researchers, practitioners, advocates, tribal and local officials, private foundation representatives, and community residents.

Torre, who established the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation to give children relief from violence in their homes, had everyone’s rapt attention when he described the impact of witnessing abuse as a child:

“It took decades before I finally started to talk about the violence in my childhood,” he said. “And as the task force has heard from one person after another, things haven’t changed enough. Every child deserves a safe home, a safe school, and a safe community….They need our help. And we need their help. Children are a part of the solution. Awareness is a part of the solution. Some people think it’s just a part of society that we can’t do anything about. But we can do something about it. It’s our responsibility to take care of our kids. Even if they don’t have the same last name, they’re our kids.”

The Attorney General often says that children’s exposure to violence is not an issue the Department of Justice – or any one agency or organization – can take on alone.  It will take all of us – working together.  And with the momentum we’ve generated through our Defending Childhood Initiative, the information and insights we’ve gained through the Task Force, and the tremendous support and leadership shown by everyone here, I know we will find a way to make America safer for our children.

More information on the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood Initiative and this task force is available at www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood.